Stump Speech Murder (9 page)

“I know you don’t have class now!” began Joan, and barged in, slamming Pamela’s office door closed behind her.  “We have to talk.”

“I just got here,” moaned Pamela as she slid into the cushions of her comfy couch and began to unscrew the top of her thermos.  Joan sat primly, as usual, on the straight back chair beside the door. 

“I just heard from Martin,” announced Joan.

“Martin?” asked Pamela, “You mean James Grant’s law partner?”

“And campaign manager,” corrected Joan.  Her upright posture was noticeably more severe than usual–obviously, indicative that Joan was on a mission.

“Yes,” continued Pamela. “You’re talking to him?”

“Actually,” explained Joan with more animation than she usually exhibited, “Willard contacted me.”

“You said Martin Dobbs contacted you,” said Pamela, grimacing.  Joan was on a roll and much further along in her journey than Pamela, who still maintained a blissful Monday morning fog.

“Martin contacted Willard and Willard called me.”

“Willard’s not here?” asked Pamela.  It was not like Willard to make phone calls to them.  If he needed to discuss something, he would typically wait until he saw Pamela at work.  After all, his office was next door and all he had to do was tap on the adjoining wall.

“He called me from the jail,” continued Joan, becoming even more expressive.

“Willard is at the jail?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Joan, now apparently getting to the meat of her message.  “Martin has been the only person to actually visit James in jail, except, of course, the police.  He is his attorney—and of course his best friend.”

“I had heard on TV,” contributed Pamela, “that James Grant is an only child and that both of his parents are dead.  I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse, given his situation.”

“I know what you mean,” agreed Joan, hands pushing through her neatly coifed silver hair.  “The poor man could certainly use some family support right now.  Thank God he has Martin.”

“Yes,” said Pamela.  “I can see that.  But why is Willard there?”

“Evidently, Martin asked him to visit James.  Martin says that James has become so despondent that he can’t get him to even become involved in his own defense.  James says he didn’t kill his wife, but he still says he’s guilty.  Martin can’t get any more out of him.  He’s stymied.  Martin and Willard are close—so he asked Willard to talk to James.  He thought that maybe James might be able to communicate more rationally with someone he didn’t know as well.  And—the important part—he thought Willard might be able to pick up on something in James’s voice that might help him know how to defend him.”

“Even if he’s guilty?” asked Pamela, sipping her warm orange blossom tea cautiously.

“Especially if he’s guilty,” agreed Joan.  “But he’s not! Of course, Martin simply doesn’t believe that he’s guilty, but he’s totally at a loss to figure out what did happen, because James won’t—or can’t—contribute to his own defense because he’s so depressed about his wife’s death.”

“So?” asked Pamela, with a certain mounting excitement.  “Did Willard detect anything unusual in James’s voice?”

“According to Martin, Willard confirms that he believes that James is telling the truth about his innocence.”  Joan dropped this statement and then leaned back in the chair and looked pointedly at Pamela.

“Willard has done some work on vocal cues related to deception,” noted Pamela.  “Although, most of that research suggests that there are precious few specific features that are mutually exclusive for truth and deception.”

“I know that,” said Joan, nodding, and leaning forward again. “But Willard assured Martin that he was almost 100% certain that James was being truthful about not killing Stacy.”

“Maybe James believes he didn’t kill his wife, but he really did,” said Pamela.

“How could that be?” smirked Joan.  She tapped her hair in an unnecessary attempt to correct any fly-away strands.

“I don’t know,” said Pamela with a shrug. “Maybe he killed her in a rage then forgot about it because he was so traumatized.”

“For God’s sake, Pamela!” cried Joan. “How can a scientific researcher come up with such fanciful ideas?”

“It’s those fanciful ideas that allowed me to solve not one, but three murders, in the last few years!”

“So, you’re telling me you don’t believe in Willard’s evaluation of James Grant?”

“No,” said Pamela, “I do believe Willard.  He’s always very cautious.  He’d never make a pronouncement like that unless he was positive.”

“Anyway,” continued Joan, “why I came in here, is because Willard—and Martin–want you to come down to the jail and talk to James.”

“What?” she exclaimed.  “I don’t know the man.  I mean, I just met him that one time.  I doubt that my talking to him would add any more to his lawyer’s evaluation of his honesty than Willard’s.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Joan.  “All I know is that both of them—Willard and Martin—asked specifically for you to come to the jail.  Surely, you won’t refuse?  I mean, a man’s life is in the balance.  If you can contribute something—anything—don’t you feel a bit obligated to assist?”

“Joan!” she cried, “I have class.  I have papers to grade.”

“Pamela,” responded Joan, “no one is asking you to spend the day in the city jail.  Just go talk to the man for an hour or so.”

“Why would he agree to talk to me anyway?”  She stretched her legs out and leaned back in the sofa cushion with a sigh. 

“If Martin asks him to, he will, says Willard,” Joan explained.  “He’s so defeated, he’s a shell of the James you–we–remember from the rally.” 

“And if I go talk to him,” she offered, “what is it that I’m supposed to be looking for?  I haven’t done any deception research like Willard has.  I don’t know what you would expect me to listen for.”

“Just listen,” said Joan.  “Just talk. Let him talk.  You’re insightful.  As you say, you’ve solved other murders, Pamela.  What harm can it do for you just to talk to James?”

“None, I guess,” she responded with a deep sigh as she sank farther down into her sofa.  The rays of the sun that had shone so brilliantly through her blinds just moments before, forming a striped pattern on her floor, now turned to a dismal gray—as gray as she felt.  This was not what she wanted to do.  Just because she had solved those other mysteries didn’t mean that she was chomping at the bit to solve every crime that occurred in her city.  And Rocky!  Oh, my, she didn’t even want to think how he’d react if—when–he heard that she’d gone to the city jail to interview a murder suspect!

“All right.  I’ll go visit with James Grant.  When am I supposed to do this?” she asked her friend who now had a smug look on her face.

“No time like the present!” said Joan brightly.

Chapter Eleven

She managed to postpone Joan’s insistent demand, and schedule her jailhouse meeting with James Grant for later in the afternoon.  Ungraded quizzes and last-minute prepping for her morning lecture provided undeniable excuses.  Now, hours later, she stood at her desk, packing her belongings into her purse, gathering her thermos and books on her desk.  A glance at her watch told her it was nearing three o’clock and her interview with James Grant was scheduled for 3:30 p.m.  She headed out, locking her door behind her.  The hallway was quiet.  Willard and Joan were probably in class.

As she was leaving for the day, she dropped by the main office to check her mail box.  She was standing by her cubby hole thumbing through the various pieces of mail, when the departmental chairman, Mitchell Marks, came through, ushering an elegantly-dressed, middle-aged woman wearing a silver, silk, designer suit.

“Mitchell,” said the attractive woman, “I will expect that chili cook-off of yours to be a smash success!  Just like last year’s!”

“With your donation, Katherine,” replied their chair in his typical dour fashion, “it’s sure to be.”

With a tinkling laugh, the woman gave Mitchell two quick social kisses on either side of his face.  Then smiling, she turned and exited from the main office.  Mitchell turned to return to his private domain, located beyond Jane Marie’s small alcove.  He noticed Pamela, standing before the wall of faculty mailboxes.

“Pamela,” he greeted her warmly.  “Just departing?”

“Looks like you found a donor for the chili cook-off?” she asked in regard to the recently departed woman.

“Oh, yes!” he replied.  “Katherine Brewster.  She’s always been very generous to our department.”

“Katherine Brewster?” asked Pamela, “The mayor’s wife?”

“The very one,” responded Mitchell, heading back towards his office.  Pamela followed him, eyeing Jane Marie as she passed her desk.  The pert secretary gave her a wide-eyed shrug.

“I had no idea that the mayor’s wife was interested in Grace,” said Pamela, pondering the recent interaction between the wife of the town’s top politico and her boss.  Mitchell wandered into his office and behind his desk.  He seemed totally nonplussed when Pamela followed him in, uninvited.

“I don’t know how interested she is in any other department,” mused Mitchell, casually lifting his feet up onto the edge of his massive desk, “but she’s very interested in Psychology.”

“Really?” asked Pamela, propping herself on the edge of one of Mitchell’s massive leather chairs that faced his desk.

“Probably has something to do with the fact that she was a Psych major when she was a student,” noted Mitchell, reaching for a pipe from his desk pipe holder along with a long wooden match in a small bronze box beside it.  University policy forbade smoking anywhere on campus, but typically it was not enforced in faculty offices. 

“She’s been funding the cook-off for some time?” asked Pamela.

“Since we started it,” he replied.  “In fact, if it weren’t for Katherine Brewster, we never would have had our first cook-off.  She has probably single-handedly been responsible for the success of our department’s amazing, public, fundraising efforts, I’d say.  More so than anyone else.”

Pamela knew that all departments on campus relied on fund-raising efforts to survive.  Yes, tuition paid for faculty salaries and basic upkeep, but departments had to raise massive amounts of extra money if they wanted to do any sort of building improvements or make any special purchases. 

“If truth be told,” he said bending to her, in a whisper, “after Charlotte Clark, Katherine raised more money for the computer lab than anyone else.  Not to mention, all the recent improvements to the animal lab that Bob and Arliss are so proud of.”  Charlotte had been the Psychology Department’s most prominent researcher and fundraiser before her murder in one of the booths of the aforementioned computer lab several years ago—a murder that had begun Pamela’s erstwhile, crime-fighting career.

“When you say ‘Katherine,’ Mitchell,” ventured Pamela, carefully, “you mean that she acts on her own?  Not as a representative of her husband?”

“Don’t really know, Pamela,” said Mitchell with a shrug.  Pamela gazed at her boss.  Although she didn’t consider him a close friend and colleague as she did Joan, Arliss, and Willard, she did feel relatively comfortable discussing important issues with him or pleading for his assistance when she needed it.  In fact, Mitchell Marks had proven invaluable to her in a number of her criminal investigations.  Mitchell puffed on his pipe.  Sitting in the late afternoon light in front of his window, he reminded her of a Southern gentleman from the Civil War—just lacking the Confederate uniform.  His massive head of wavy blond hair—complete with receding hairline—made him look like a modern-day Ashley Wilkes.  “For all I know, Hap Brewster might be behind the donations, but it’s Katherine who always arrives like clockwork to deliver the check.  And a large check it is too.”

“So you’ve known her for some time?” asked Pamela, trying not to wave away the potent odor of the pipe smoke.

“As long as I’ve been here—or as long as we’ve been doing the cook-off,” he scowled.  “Can’t quite remember.  But, she’s a trooper.  Quite a lady!”  He smiled and seemed to drift off in reverie.

“You’ve never met the husband?” queried Pamela.

“Nope,” said Marks with a shrug.  “But, over the years, I’ve gleaned a lot about him from Katherine.   I guess being the wife of such a notorious person makes a woman feel a bit—overshadowed.  That may be why she likes to keep her contributions separate from his.  My understanding is that she’s independently wealthy—from a very socially prominent family.  She’s always very proper.  At times, I’ve gotten the feeling that she’s . . . embarrassed by her husband’s mafia-style tactics.  But, she’s too much of a lady to discuss them—or him.”